[TheZookie007]

There's this little thing called "white privilege" that has a lot to do with it. Can anyone remember the speculation when the Oklahoma City bombing took place that the perp was some Muslim -- until Timothy McVeigh was caught? Or look at two things that have happened very recently, the shooting by Amy Bishop and the dude who flew his plane into the IRS building in Texas. As soon as we found out that they were white, that fact was never again mentioned...and suddenly, they were painted with the "mental illness"/"something drove them to do it" line. If a black woman had been denied tenure and then went back to her school to shoot up the joint, what do you think would have happened? And do you think she would have gotten the job in the first place if it had been discovered that she'd actually shot and killed her own brother years earlier? And as for Mr. Stack, he wasn't an innocent man being hounded by the evil IRS. He'd been caught not once but twice as a tax evader...so the attention of the IRS on him would not be out of the question. I'm watching Nightline, and ALREADY they're calling it "a suicide attack". No, since his solution was to fly a plane into a building: if that isn't a terrorist act, I wonder what is!

stuff white people like: "fail to see wolves in white sheep's clothing"

 

[solvegas]

Never heard of the Red brigades ? Baider-Mainhoff ? The IRA ? Weather Underground ? Guess what, they were all white. And what happened recently in Fort Hood ? Our goverment strenously insisted it was not terrorism because the assailant was muslim and they did not want to inflame the public. Those terror groups were smashed back in the 70's and 80's but believe me, their race gave them no priviledge. Today, despite what some want to believe, most terror groups and terrorist use Islam as an excuse to cause their mayhem. And some are white. In 2008, six Albanian ( white ) muslims tried to murder soldiers in Fort Dix in New Jersey. They were caught because of a tip provide  by a pizza delivery man. A definition of terrorism is the use of violence to affect political/goverment change. The man that flew that plane into the IRS office in Austin will be considered a criminal, not a terrorist, unless they get evidence he was trying to change, in his mind, political/goverment change. Timothy McVeigh was a terrorist because, in his feeble mind, he was striking a evil goverment which he hoped to destroy. So your title for this thread is wrong.

[100ProofBE]

John Walker Lindh would like a word with you.

A group of trained men on a mission flying a plane in to a government building who consider themselves soldiers in a fight against American imperialism is pretty much the definition of terrorism: a form of combat designed to demoralize and strike fear in to the hearts of an enemy.

One man flying a plane in to a government building because he thinks the IRS is unfairly screwing him is just suicidal and mildly ridiculous. But I don't know that you can necessarily file that under the definition of terrorism. Unless you think he's a teabagger terrorist.

Not saying that I necessarily disagree with you... white privilege is a very real thing and an institution that will take generations to do away with in this country. Just not sure if your definition of terrorism jives with mine.

[TheZookie007]

Actually, I agree with both of you, in this regard: OF COURSE white people can be terrorists. But, I worded the topic that way partly because of what you said 100Proof: the American media almost always brushes off such acts as merely the work of a lone deluded individual, with little or no mention of his ethnicity or his religion -- as long as the fellow is white. And they do not link (usually) his actions with his ethnicity or his religion. To say that "most terror groups and terrorist use Islam as an excuse to cause their mayhem" is proof of what I am saying, since that is just not the case. I mean, sol, you yourself gave many examples of other terrorist groups in Europe and the US in your post. The unspoken assumptions always seem to be that "white means right and normal, non-white, not so much" and "if you are The Other, you must be a terrorist, but if you are white, well, there must some other logical explanation for your actions".

With the huge exception of what happened on 9/11, how many other terrorist attacks that occurred in the United States were carried out by non-whites? Who commits the majority of violent crimes in the US, and who are their victims? The answers: practically none, young white males, and mainly other whites. Yet we don't go around regarding every young white male with suspicion, or single them out for special searches, etc. at airports ONLY BECAUSE of what they look like...the other name for which is "profiling".

Let's pretend that instead of being a military base, Fort Hood was a bank. If someone who worked at Fort Hood Savings & Loan had gone to work, pulled out a gun, and shot up the place, what would we have immediately called it? We would have called it "a workplace shooting". Well, the man who shot up Fort Hood did so at his place of work -- he was a soldier, after all, and killing people is what soldiers do for a living -- so why is the one just called a "workplace shooting" and the other called "an act of terrorism by an Islamic extremist"? Why is any negative act committed by a person who happens to be of Arab descent, or Muslim, or both, almost always automatically labeled an act of terror, while similar or even worse acts committed by a person who happens not to be of Arab descent, etc., are not?  It's this dichotomy that I am speaking out against; the title of this thread reflects the impression given by the media most of the time when such negativity goes down in the U.S.

[DruulEmpire]

Zook, I see your point a little, and I think it goes to interesting tendencies in how we assign a certain level of organization to an act of violence.  In somewhat the same way that not every jerk who knocks over a 7-11 is a "Mafioso," so we try to be careful not to give every go-out-in-a-blaze-of-glory wacko the topical hot-button name "terrorist."  By your logic, that Cho fellow who shot so many at Virginia Tech SHOULD have been accused of being egged on by, I don't know, Kim Jong Il?, but he was pretty obviously another walking time bomb in the Harris-Klebold mode, so he wasn't.

This is not theory to me, as I live in Pittsburgh, where we're still handling that Poplawski idiot, and I do have to ask myself: was Poplawski egged on by irresponsible punditry?  And there's where I think we can begin to sort things out: actual membership in something, as opposed to simply being a "number one fan" of something, to borrow from Kathy Bates.  The Fort Hood shooter was obviously an extreme sympathizer, but no, he wasn't an actual member of anything -- but should that have let him off the hook, anymore than it would Poplawski?  We're looking at situations where any yahoos can declare themselves martyrs of a cause they never really joined, and it's a tricky messy thing.  We may need a new in-between category for such folk -- especially if they keep growing in numbers, and lethality.

[onion_writer]

Off-topic, but I am amazed that there is so much violence and fear of violence between Judaism, Islam and Christianity -- who all share the Old Testament. Islam even believes Jesus was a prophet, who will some day return. In the big picture, the differences between the Abrahamic religions is small.

These three religions have more in common than any other. Why don't we/they ever go after the real outsiders, like those wicked Buddhists, Shintoists or Druids?

(Not serious in the least, of course.)

[DruulEmpire]

It's generally assumed that fear and hate is greatest between people who are wildly different, and there's much truth in that -- and yet, people who are very similar (whether they realize it or not) never fail to demonstrate astonishing viciousness.  I offer you:

The American Civil War
The killing fields of the Khmer Rouge
The recent history of Rwanda

I imagine that even Cain and Abel were in fact very much alike.

[pedonbio]

Yet we don't go around regarding every young white male with suspicion, or single them out for special searches, etc. at airports ONLY BECAUSE of what they look like.

Speaking only for myself, I view them all with deep suspicion.

GET OFF MY FUCKING LAWN!!

[100ProofBE]

Off-topic, but I am amazed that there is so much violence and fear of violence between Judaism, Islam and Christianity -- who all share the Old Testament. Islam even believes Jesus was a prophet, who will some day return. In the big picture, the differences between the Abrahamic religions is small.

This is due to the nature of faith and, more specifically, monotheistic religions. The first commandment handed down to Moses was "I (singular) am the Lord, thy god. Thou shalt have no other god beside me" (ignoring the translation problems and what the original Aramaic/Greek actually says). Since they believe there is only one god (save for the Christians who believe in two or three), there is no room for tolerance of anyone else's belief, no matter how similar they are to one's own, because accepting that possibility would imply their sacred scripture is incorrect. And as we all know, the bible is never wrong/historically inaccurate. Except for when it is.

[gOOber]

 

[PregNut]

One man flying a plane in to a government building because he thinks the IRS is unfairly screwing him is just suicidal and mildly ridiculous. But I don't know that you can necessarily file that under the definition of terrorism. Unless you think he's a teabagger terrorist.

The mainstream media is certainly trying to portray him as such.

[rtpoe]

One thing that's been passed over....

A single person "going postal" and shooting up the joint or flying a plane into a building is not a terrorist.

A person who belongs to an organization committed to violence and who shoots up a place, bombs a place, or flies a plane into a building *is* a terrorist.

Is that a good differentiation?

[TheZookie007]

One thing that's been passed over....

A single person "going postal" and shooting up the joint or flying a plane into a building is not a terrorist.

A person who belongs to an organization committed to violence and who shoots up a place, bombs a place, or flies a plane into a building *is* a terrorist.

Is that a good differentiation?

What organization did Timothy McVeigh belong to again?

[onion_writer]

I think any offenses under the category of "hate crimes" are terrorism. Certainly the Ku Klux Klan's past crimes (current?) qualify. And they could hardly be more white.

It's a slippery slope. The first century Jewish sicari were terrorists -- fighting Roman imperialism. So were the American Revolutionaries who took part in the original tea party. John Wilkes Booth is a poster person for terrorism, as are his co-conspirators who tried on the same day to assassinate all the top Union war leaders.

All try to effect societal change through violence. How about the abortion clinic murderer?

Then there are all those whom I think we could all agree are heroes, because they try to effect societal change through non-violent means: Ghandi, Buddha, Martin Luther King, Jr., the actual historical Jesus, etc. (Depending on the Biblical translation, the two "bandits" he was crucified with were rebels who fought for change by violence, putting Jesus' program in stark relief.)

Our water boarding? Changing "hearts and minds" in Vietnam? Our freedom fighters are "their" terrorists, and vice versa. It comes down to the concept of total war, where there are no parties without perceived guilt among a society, and so all must supposedly pay, including civilians. Dresden? Nazi death camps? Hiroshima?

The death penalty as a means of disuading others?

I abhor such intellectualizing. Inflicting death, inflicting violence, is always wrong, unless in self defense or as a means to prevent worse violence and death. We must stand for something, or else we stand for nothing.

[100ProofBE]

What organization did Timothy McVeigh belong to again?

Anti-government skinhead militia if I recall correctly.